Netflix not slowing down, shows growth

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Unlike most companies during the recession, Netflix has shown growth with its recent additions to the movie rental company. Netflix grew 26% over the last year with 9,390,000 subscribers at the end of 2008. Netflix did report a slow fourth-quarter for 2008, but an overall growth for the year.

Netflix has recently showed two significantly growing changes to the way they distribute content to the customer. One major change was streaming on the Xbox360 console, bringing movies, TV shows and other content directly to the living room over a streaming broadband connection. The other major success was the switch to adopt Blu-ray in its mail delivery system, where nearly 700,000 subscribers were renting Blu-ray disks from Netflix, where Netflix started distributing the content in February.

Netflix also reported upcoming additions to the company to include streaming content directly into the living room with broadband compatible HDTV's from LG Electronics, which supports Netflix streaming software built into the TV's, to eliminate the need for a set top box.

Vizio and Netflix have also joined up to have streaming HDTV content directly to the TV sets, based on the new Connected HDTV platform, which plans to ship nationwide later this year.

Roku, a digital video set-top box, allows users to stream pay-per-view content from Amazon.com in its Netflix-enabled box.

(2 replies) #1 Mr.ed on 30 Jan 2009 - 12:13

Ok. Sounds cool and all, but when they finally accept that Puerto Rico IS part os US, and let us have streaming content, then ill be content.

Stupid geolocation piece of crap.

Mr.Ed

#1.1 bob_c_b on 30 Jan 2009 - 12:32

Mr.ed said,

I believe it's a lot more to do with their relationship with the USPS that prevents them from having better relationships outside the US. There really isn't enough streaming content to make it the sole basis for a subscription YET. So as the streaming library gets bigger I won't be shocked to see "outside the contiguous US" expansion, but not likely much before.

#1.2 Mr.ed on 30 Jan 2009 - 12:47

Well, i understand that, but the problem is, we already have Netflix over the mail. That works incredibly well, although slower than the continental counterpart.

My rant was more related to streaming content. If we can have hard media, why not streaming? Some things just dont make sense. Oh, well. I get the YET part, so lets see how long yet takes...

Mr.Ed

#2 paesan on 30 Jan 2009 - 12:26

Duh, of course they are doing well. The economy has tanked and many people don't have alot of cash to go out and do anything. With all these people staying home they need some form of entertainment so they rent from Netflix. Add in it is the winter season and I am not surprised by this at all. Bottom line is this is the cheapest form of entertainment for the whole family.

#3 bob_c_b on 30 Jan 2009 - 12:30

I've been e NeFlix subscriber from the early days and the addition of streaming started as a nice benefit and is turning in to a major draw. Like any company there have been missteps along the way, but none so bad as to consider going somewhere else (outside of the price increase boycott back around 2002 IIRC, but I was back as soon as they corrected that issue). I'd like to see some real competition in this space with both Blockbuster and WalMart trying and failing, but as long as NetFlix remains customer driven as they are now, I'm happy.

#4 ir0nw0lf on 30 Jan 2009 - 14:50

Plus the fact that there are now many many more ways to enjoy Netflix streaming. I have the Xbox 360 in the living room with the big screen TV and stream Netflix through it. All of the newer Blu-Ray players with Netflix streaming capabilities are quite popular and I believe one TV maker is going to release a Netflix capable TV. With the economy in the crapper, it's a good value to stream Netflix, even if the selection is a bit stale to some.

#5 ec4912 on 30 Jan 2009 - 18:01

Love Netflix!

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